Surrey Homes | SH97 | February 2023 | Education Supplement inside

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This page: A series of huge and very striking portraits by South African-based artist Solomon Omogboye are displayed on the
landing. Just like the exterior of the house – which uses natural materials to counterbalance any austerity of the glass and steel –
the interior incorporates nature throughout its design, from the wooden floors and joinery to the profusion of houseplants
Sitting with Garry and Camilla in their stunning architect
designed contemporary home they point at the original pump
house, now artfully hidden in a small copse of trees at the
bottom of the hill. “That’s where we all lived,” says Garry, “us
and the three kids whilst we waited for the necessary planning
to build our dream family home. It was a great house.”
Whilst the family are today happily cocooned within their
beautifully designed two floor upside down house (more of
which later) it has been quite the journey for them, moving
first into the original 1930s terraced cottage whilst renovations
began on the pump house and then into the pump house
where they waited for the second phase of the main build
to take shape. Throw into the mix a two-year pandemic and
it is understandable quite how happy the Elms family must
have been when they finally moved into their new home.
“When we first moved into the original cottage, we all got a bit
of a shock as nothing had been done to it in decades. Dark blue
carpets, pink and yellow walls in the wrong place, but it was also
quite lovely and very cosy with the most amazing views across the
old parkland,” says Camilla. Within a year the necessary work had
been done on the pump house, stripping it back to its Victorian
roots, dragging it back to life from quite a sorry state. “The
pump house had no roof and it was full of water. We kept the
renovation as sympathetic as possible,” says Garry, who wanted
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